Spatial Spillover Effects of Transport Infrastructure on Economic Growth of Vietnam Regions: A Spatial Regression Approach

Abstract

This article examines the spatial spillover effects of transport infrastructure in regions of Vietnam. We apply the spatial Durbin model to estimate the regional spillover of transport infrastructure to Vietnam's economic growth from 2000-2019. The results show that positive evidence exists in each period due to the connective nature of the transport infrastructure at the national level. At the regional level, transport infrastructure spillover effects vary considerably over time among four macro-regions of Vietnam: the southern region always has a positive spillover effect; the Northern region had adverse spillover effects in the period 2000-2009 and positive in the period 2010-2019; the Central region had negative spillovers in both periods; in the case of the economic region of the Mekong Delta, negative spillovers can be observed after 2010. The analysis has shown that changes in spillover among regions are closely related to the shift of production factors in Vietnam over the past two decades.